WARWICKSHIRE’S two most senior policing leaders – the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable – are jointly calling on the chancellor to prioritise policing in the forthcoming Autumn Budget.
Their call follows stark findings from the National Audit Office (NAO), which reveal that Warwickshire has experienced the largest decrease in government police funding per capita in England and Wales, despite having the highest population growth.
Between 2015 and 2024, Warwickshire’s population grew by approximately 12 per cent, yet government funding per head fell by a matching 12 per cent, according to the NAO’s latest report on police productivity. This double pressure – rising demand and falling central support – places Warwickshire Police under increasing financial pressure.
Police and crime commissioner Philip Seccombe said: “Warwickshire is growing faster than anywhere else in the country, yet our police funding is shrinking. This is a clear and urgent signal that the current funding formula is broken. It fails to reflect the real pressures on our force and the needs of our communities.”
The commissioner is urging the chancellor to use the November Budget to allocate additional resources to the Home Office, enabling a full and fair review of the police funding formula – something that has not been updated since 2013.
Currently, around 50 per cent of Warwickshire Police’s budget comes from the local Police Precept, meaning the burden of funding increasingly falls on local taxpayers. While the commissioner has worked to protect frontline services, he warns that relying on reserves and annual council tax increases is not a sustainable solution.
He continued: “Warwickshire deserves a fair share of national police funding – one that reflects our population growth, the complexity of modern crime, and the need to invest in technology and infrastructure. The chief constable and I are committed to delivering a high-quality police service and we have carefully structured our budgets year on year to deliver improvements, despite the inherent imbalance the current funding formula deals us.
“In the longer term this is unsustainable and we need a fair funding settlement, which properly recognises the increases in population, demand and capabilities that we face.”
Chief constable Alex Franklin-Smith added: “This latest independent national data demonstrates that Warwickshire Police is getting an unfair funding deal from Central Government, at a time when the Warwickshire population has grown by more than any other policing area. Policing demand is going up and funding is going down. This is neither right for policing services in our county and nor is it right for Warwickshire taxpayers.”
